Bad Guys We Love - Best Hollywood Non-Human Villains (Part One)

Hollywood's fascination for revulsion stretches further and beyond the human realm. They have created bad guys who creep into your dreams and slash your intestines, throw magic spells, pounce on you with their fangs exposed, eat you as meals and sometimes multiply. We remember them here on this post with much awe and wariness.

Freddy Krueger - Nightmare at Elm Street 

Played by Robert Englund and Jackie Earle Haley.

Kids Beware! This scary looking bad boy waits for you till you are asleep. While you are snoring merrily, he quietly creeps into your dreams and bam-his long razor claw slashes your intestines. No big deal, huh? Wait till you see this disfigured dream stalker throw that grisly grin at you, right before he, well, kills you. Freddy Krueger was lovelorn as a child. As a reprisal act, he took to torturing little kids in their sleep and became that serial child killing monster. He was born of a human mother but the methods he uses to kill his victims certainly seem non-human. Freddy uses anything and everything he can ‘dream up’ to torment his prey before finally skewering them on his razor-fingered glove.

Feel like taking a nap, eh? Go ahead. Just don’t tell us that we didn’t warn you!

Regan MacNeil - The Exorcist 

Played by Linda Blair

Her chubby cheeks and cute smile would have made her a teacher’s pet any other day. I honestly feel like singing ‘It’s not your fault’ to her like Phoebe Buffay sings to her smelly cat. The poor girl was possessed by Satan himself (like stepping into adolescence wasn’t enough trouble already). Next we see her screaming and swearing bearing horrendous scar marks on her pretty face. Not just that, she can turn her head 360 degrees, her eyes go awry and she levitates in the middle of the night. Don’t even get me started on her throaty voice, just thinking of it gives me the willies!

Damien Thorn - The Omen 

Played by Harvey Stephens, Jonathan Scott-Taylor, Sam Neill, and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick

Another innocent face with pure evil in the heart! Damien Thorn is the Antichrist and the son of the Devil, destined to bring the apocalypse. He has the 666 birthmark to prove it. What makes him so petrifying is probably his gumption to push his mother off a balcony, making her lose her unborn child, all in cold blood. You never know when the innocent gaze of a toddler turns into a menacing stare that could actually make lightning strike and concrete fall on your head! Better stay out of his way. Besides, he is protected by wolves!

The Wicked Witch of the West - The Wizard of Oz 

Played by Margaret Hamilton

We should probably thank her for making the witch costume a trend during Halloween. The Wicked Witch of West is fiercely intimidating and you certainly don’t want to be stuck with her inside an elevator. She is jealous, hateful and like The Joker from The Dark Knight, is hell bent on causing chaos. She’s got some malevolent magical tricks up her sleeve and has a bandwagon of minions to delegate her wicked acts. Her speciality is torturing harmless animals and scaring lost little girls.

Lord Voldemort - Harry Potter Series 

Played by Ralph Fiennes

In the magical realm exists another devilish being. We call him "You-Know-Who", "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" or "the Dark Lord" for even the mention of his name maybe catastrophic. Lord Voldemort is the arch nemesis of the courageous good will ambassador Harry Potter. Lord Voldemort’s quest is to gain ultimate power by killing Harry Harry Potter since he was born and the latter always manages to escape his fatal yet futile attempts.

Alien - Alien 

Played by Bolaji Badejo

It isn’t Signoury Weaver alone that he torments. This baddie takes an entire space ship crew down, killing them one at a time. The titular Alien in the movie Alien is enormous and causes trouble of gigantic proportions. It is from the beyond and the malignant creature simply makes your blood freeze with fear. Hats of to Signoury Weaver for taking down the vicious, virtually unbeatable alien on her own!

Bruce - Jaws 

Played by a seemingly convincing mechanical model

Toothy is cute? That holds true for Bugs Bunny not for this toothy predator that basically eats human. Why? Well, because human blood titillates his sense of smell and taste. We are his staple food precisely. When Bruce the shark, pops out of the water...God save the world. This gigantic shark’s basic instincts made people scared of water and waves for a long time. Go to the beach, end up being Happy Meal for a shark!

Cujo the Dog - Cujo 

Played by a St. Bernard whose real name was Daddy; Vocal effects performed by voice actor Frank Welker

More teeth on their way- this time they’re actually fangs. Dracula? Yeah you wish! No folks this is your neighbourhood canine. Cujo is an offspring of Stephen King’s vivid imagination. He is your average lovable pet dog transformed into a vicious killing machine with an insatiable need for blood. We see his nose getting wetter and gallons of saliva dripping down his tongue as he pounces on humans and tears of their flesh. Cujo is a nightmare, especially when you are awake. Want to adopt a pet puppy? Make sure it is properly vaccinated.

Darth Vader - Star Wars 

Played by David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones

Another Lord, they call him Lord Vader or Darth Vader. This masked baddie is evil personified. Worse he is dark, disciplined and quite intelligent too which makes him all the more perilous. Vader's signature black helmet, echo-box breathing and portent-of-doom musical theme made him the #1 super villain after Dracula.There is a little explanation where we get to see why he is the way he is. We realized there was so much more to the guy in the walking coffin, and when he dies, one can’t help but grab a tissue. Now that is a great villain.

Agent Smith - The Matrix Triology 

Played by Hugo Weaving

Simply love the way he says “Hello Mr. Anderson”. He is suave, sophisticated and there are so many of them.. Agent Smith is a rogue program, resurfacing in various spots all over The Matrix without being controlled by the machines. He despises human beings, thinks they are parasitic and is out there to destroy them all. As he grows his number making every one he touches a clone of himself, he almost manages to bring an apocalypse till he was stopped by Mr Anderson or Neo, the white knight. His Men in Black attire, composure and brilliant sarcastic speeches make him an echelon of manovalence. 

-by Parmita Borah

(Click Here for "Best Hollywood Villains")

Bad Guys We Love - Best Hollywood Villains

They are mean, menacing and merciless. They are bad to the bone. We love to hate them, root against them and applaud when the good guys beat them to a pulp with bare hands. Yet there’s something about these cold-blooded creatures that makes them unforgettable. Here’s our pick of the ten most memorable baddies of Hollywood.

Hans Gruber - Die Hard 

Played by Alan Rickman

It appears that all this two-bit criminal cares about is money. But hang on! Apart from the $600 M at stake, this fellow actually enjoys tormenting people. Whether it's dealing with hostages or acting like one, Hans knows just the right buttons to push and always stays in charge. Is he a petty thief or a terrorist? No matter what the label is, he is a murderous felon. His calm, cool, and collected delivery of every word outweighs the need for any stereotyped villain costume.

Michael Corleone - God Father 

Played by Al Pacino

Now this is an antagonist you do not mind empathizing with. He wasn’t born with a gun in his hand, but came from a ‘family’ that did. He had an initial dislike for his ‘family business’ and wanted to escape it. But when his father dies, his intelligence and cunning comes to the fore as he takes on the big bad world of Italian Mafia, inflicting terror in the hearts of his opponents. Al Pacino brings out the character’s conflicts with such sophistication that it’s hard to imagine God Father with another actor playing Michael Corleone.

Amy Wikes - Misery 

Played by Kathy Bates

Whoa! What do we call this one - the poor little, ahem, crazy girl? The woman’s outward rigidity conceals a tempestuous interior driven by suppressed anger, hysterical passion, and religious fanaticism. While she tends to Paul Sheldon (James Caan) with tenderness, there’s no stopping of that monstrous might when he refuses to oblige to her demands. Contrast to that, Annie’s demands are not materialistic or sexual as one would expect, all she wants is a minor tweak in the story that Paul Sheldon is writing. She probably is more like an over grown tantrum kid with a baseball bat. Sure to scare the poop out of her playmates and their parents. Kathy Bates terrified both James Caan and audiences as Annie Wilkes in “Misery.” She got an Oscar, we got the creeps.

Frankenstein’s Monster - Frankenstein

Played by Boris Karloff

It wasn’t his wish or choice to become the monster he was. Rather, he was created with that kind of inhuman imperfection. Often confused with his creator Frankenstein, the monster, was the outcome untamed desire to challenge and tinker with nature. One can’t help but feel sorry for this monstrous creature - inside out that seems to have no way to redemption. The monster is often used as a metaphor for politics, nuclear science, genetic engineering and other agents of change to warn against experimentation that are against nature and beyond human control.

Nurse Ratched - One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest 

Played by Louise Fletcher

Little boys and girls are dead scared of the hypodermic needle, but it takes a pair of acerbic eyes and condescending stature to instil belonephobia amongst adults. It probably takes the might of a tyrant like Nurse Ratched to maintain order in a mental asylum, though her ways do agonize the patients. The various trysts that she had with Jack Nicholson’s character, makes her brawl like a wild beast whose territory has been challenged. Despite that eerily composed facial expression and her sparkling uniform, Louise Fletcher, emits an aura of feared authority. Hold on, fellas! She’s out there to scare mankind - one man at a time.

Norman Bates - Psycho 

Played by Anthony Perkins

In one scene Norman Bates is a sweet natured, slightly effeminate young man, who offers his hospitality to a young woman on the run. He is a regular guy next door, stutters and stammers at the sight of an attractive women. The next moment he is a slash killer who brutally stabs that woman till she lies lifeless in a pool of blood. The debatable topic of dissociative personality disorder gained credibility on the silver screen for the first time, thanks to the haunting performance by Anthony Perkins. Who can ever forget the ghoulish stare that pierces right through the areas inside the skull that causes fear? We will always remember Norman bates as the terrifying mama’s boy who in all probability hatched a new phobia - the fear of taking showers.

Hannibal Lecter – Silence Of The Lambs 

Played by Anthony Hopkins

Our bad guys seem to get weirder and weirder. This one is a super intelligent, disciplined cannibalistic serial killer who takes a fancy for a novice FBI agent. That’s not all - he actually goes out of his way to help her track down another crazy bum who kills people and skins them for leather. “What has the world come to”, like my grandma would say. While he despises another interrogating officer, clubs a guard and actually eats another, Hannibal Lector has a mentor-like attitude towards FBI agent Clarice (an undeclared protégé of his). Anthony Hopkins’s bloodcurdling portrayal of Hannibal Lecter with occasional interludes of humour and wit confuses the viewer while deciding whether to like him or hate him.

Alex Forrest - Fatal Attraction 

Played by Glenn Close

Hell hath no fury like the woman scorned - who know it better than Michael Douglas's character Dan Gallagher in Fatal Attraction. A happily married man has a one night stand with the insanely attractive book editor Alex Forrest. He gets her pregnant and returns to his regular life hoping to get away with it. He is in for a surprise. This woman is no Hester Prynne and she’d rather kill him and everything he loves than letting him part with her. Glen Close certainly scared the pants off promiscuous men when she stepped into the fatal shoes of Alex Forrest. In this riveting cultural phenomenon that altered the way men looked at gorgeous women, Glen Close proved that female baddies needn’t be scary or overweight. Thanks to her enraged portrayal of a scorned lover, Fatal Attraction carved itself an iconic spot in Popular Culture

Catherine Trammell - Basic Instinct 

Played by Sharon Stone

Our villains seem to be getting sexier and crazier. Whoever said ‘if looks could kill’? Her stone cold looks make men so desperate that they’d die for a single speck of her attention; and she in turn is happy to oblige. Be it the infamous leg uncrossing scene, or her consistent provocative body language, Sharon Stone’s portrayal of Catherine Trammel in Basic Instinct titillated the basic carnal instincts of her onlookers and catapulted her to stardom. The mystery and enigma that surrounds Catherine proves to be a distraction from all the sadistic crimes she commits making her all the more attractive to the investigating officer played by Michael Douglas.

The Joker - The Dark Knight 

Played by Heath Ledger

“Haha Haha haha” he says “Why so serious?” It’s hard to say if Heath Ledger's untimely death immortalised “The Joker” in The Dark Knight; but those who have seen the Hollywood movie, can’t deny that his flawless acting as Batman’s nemesis, added unfathomed layers to The Joker. In The Dark Knight we see The Joker as a rebel without a cause with an ice prick for a heart and a ghastly scar for a smile. He wears a purple suit, has golden hair and blinds a guy with a pencil. He is eccentric, erratic, relentless, and has no sob stories to justify his acts. The Joker wants to watch the world burn, simply to prove the fact that everyone in Gotham city is as ugly inside as he is outside. Many have opined that Heath Ledgers portrayal of The Joker does not align with the comic book character, but isn’t that what actors are supposed to do - bring characters alive with a personal touch? The critics and cynics may have their say, but this maniacal anarchist crime lord The Joker successfully immortalised Heath ledger as an actor of highest calibre.

-by Parmita Borah

(Look out for our pick of best non human villains)